Poetry Thursday

* Before I say anything else I need to warn people from my Canadian world that this post is about Mark D. I've never written about him before but he's been in my thoughts a lot over the past few weeks so I thought I needed to honour those thoughts.

Once again, I have worked out a Poetry Thursday entry without reading the instructions first! I am home sick from work. I have some sort of bug so I am sipping tea and watching Oprah. (Funny - no matter which country I am in the sick day is the same - but I sure am missing saltine crackers.)

I have written a poem for Poetry Thursday this week. I haven't written a poem in years but I started scribbling in my notebook yesterday and this is what came out. I feel the need to explain a little. When my Mom was pregnant one of her best friends was also pregnant at the same time. They gave birth three days apart. We shared a playpen - one little blonde head, one little dark one - and grew up close friends. We went to camp together, trained as camp counsellors together, both soon had little brothers (he had two!) and went off to university.

One morning before seven our phone rang. My Dad is a minister so the phone ringing that early often means something bad has happened. I can only vaguely remember what happened next, but my Mom came into my bedroom and told me that my friend had committed suicide. There are no words to describe what happens to you when you hear those words. A part of me shut down in that moment. Mutual friends came to stay with us and all of them asked me how I was. Everyone knew how close we had been but I couldn't cope with those questions. If we had been so close, how could I not have known? Could I have done something? I shut down for many years. I couldn't let myself be sad - I didn't deserve to be sad.

It began to come out years later and eventually I was broken enough and brave enough to go and see a counsellor. We sat and coloured and talked and I finally cried and began to heal enough to think about him again. His Mom and I can finally talk about him a little. And I can finally write about him. So this poem is about all of that. It's here just as I wrote it so forgive the roughness -


When you died
we were twenty.
Two souls -
three days apart.
Salt and pepper
light and dark
girl and boy.

It doesn't get easier -

It gets harder
because some days
I don't think of you at all
and then when I do
I remember.

Where is the line?
The one that you crossed.
The one between
sadness and darkness?
Why couldn't you see
the way back?

I miss you.

There is a hole inside of me
where you used to be
It is surrounded by questions
that you can't answer.

You've missed a lot
you know.
I've danced alone at two weddings
and you're an uncle now.
I'm an aunt, too.
Or do you know that already?

Please
come back.
Explain it all to me.

Two souls.
Three days apart.
But one will be twenty forever
and one never will be again.